With Envy for the Solid Ground
by Cerulean Pen
Summary: Finn glanced over at Willa and came to the miserable conclusion that they were both going to die./Book six speculation, continuing from the last scene./


With Envy for the Solid Ground

Summary: Finn glanced over at Willa and came to the miserable conclusion that they were both going to die./Book six speculation, continuing from the last scene./

English Tragedy/Friendship Rated: T Chapters:1 Words: Finn W. & Willa

**a/n:** Short story about Willa and Finn after they fell off the edge of the boat. Since I haven't read the fifth book but once, don't expect a lot of perfect info. Anyway, no shipping in this one, I apologize, but if you enjoy friend-shipping, here you go. I always did like these guys together.

The ocean was cruel, especially in the oblivion of the night. As Finn struggled to surface, his chestnut bangs plastered to his forehead, he wondered why he had ever appreciated the merciless sea. Salt burned every pore of his visage, gathering in his nostrils, under his tongue, clinging to his eyelashes. The moon-guided tides were intense, frothy waves striving to drag him back under, into the tomb-like darkness below.

But the cold. Oh God, the cold.

Chills wracked his body, to the point where Finn could feel the muscles in his abdomen stretching and groaning at the incessant shudders. His mind wandered through the snow around it, icicles blossoming in the caverns of his skull. Frost congested his veins, from the hair-thin capillaries to his vital aorta. The cold. Oh God, the cold.

"Finn!"

Willa's somewhat grating voice, the sandiness intensified by the harsh gales, found its way to his ears. Limp with relief, Finn searched the impenetrable night for his friend, and found her hands before another wall of water came crashing down. Coughing violently, Finn jerked Willa close, so close her cocoa eyes shone like beacons across from his. "Finn, we've got to find the ship!"

"The ship's gone Willa! Do you know how fast that thing is going? Nobody is going to see us, especially in this weather!" he shouted, words scarcely audible over the deafening waves. She must have comprehended the message though, because tears glistened in her hooded eyes and her body became increasingly limp against his.

"They'll notice, won't they? We've already been gone for about five minutes! The ship will conduct a search party; we're not just your average teens daring each other to jump off! Don't you trust the guys? Charlie, Maybeck? I know you trust…Storey." Despite the fact their chances of living were steadily declining, Finn couldn't repress the pang of annoyance in his chest. Storey had done nothing but help them in the past days, and Willa still spoke of her like she was some kind of fungus.

"Well gee, in case you haven't noticed, the ocean is about a million _freakin' miles wide! _We'll be dead before the sun rises and will they ever find our bodies? No! Besides, Storey would try to find us! I don't know why you keep bashing her! Do you see me bashing Philby for being an inconsiderate, know-it-all jerk?" Before the words even escaped his throat, Finn knew he had struck a nerve mentioning Philby. Their relationship with the redhead had been straining for weeks, and Willa was struggling to find the virtue in him.

Willa almost growled at Finn, snapping her wrist away from his fingers. Any thought of ever appreciating him fled her mind, leaving behind a bitter malice. They had never disputed so violently, and the proposal of abandoning him to reach the cruise ship manifested into a decent option. "You know how long I loved him? Do you think this is easy for any of us? Your _mom _was one of the Green Eyes! This hasn't been a vacation!"

His rage dissolved, replaced with the hollowness he had felt the moment Finn discovered his mother's lovely corneas were a sickening shade of green. Willa appeared to calm down some, her grip returning to his forearm as yet another swell ascended over them. Their argument dissipated once the frigid saltwater overwhelmed them, trapping them below the surface.

Willa, an accomplished swimmer, had an exponential knowledge on drowning prevention and hazardous conditions. She paddled slowly through the indigo water, eyes set on the blade of moonlight igniting the aqua above. The brunette jutted her head above the water, gasping for breath and swiping at her nose. _Finn! _He was athletic, yes, but these kind of circumstances should be handled by professionals.

Inhaling sharply, Willa dove back into the coffin darkness below, eyes adjusting to the change in lighting. She could discern a school of fish below, their movements synchronized and graceful. A patch of coral hosted a parade of diverse sea creatures. A crab, some silver-wait! Willa concentrated intently on the odd form drifting over the coral, which seemed to grow into a human.

_Finn!_

She kicked her legs powerfully, challenging the pressurized depths to snatch at the hand drifting past a sea anemone. The brunette looped her arms around his chest, focused only on escaping this black hole of hell. The additional weight seemed to be dragging her down, towards the center of the Earth. It would be nice to sleep.

_"Aah!" _Finn fell back into consciousness, gasping and sputtering all the while. He could vaguely sense Willa's thin, yet toned, arms supporting him, keeping his head above water. "Will-?"

"Ssh, don't talk," she admonished him gently, clasping his hands around her neck. "That was a close call. We have to do something besides sit in the ocean and argue." As his surroundings became clearer, Finn realized he was being saddled on Willa's back. She was going to swim back to the boat. "Just relax. When you feel better, keep talking to me, help me focus."

_Willa, how can I relax when you have the nutty idea to just paddle on back to the ship? _Finn thought incredulously. He would have slipped off, but he had the feeling it would only result in another quarrel, which he simply did not have the energy for. "Are you sure you can do this? I mean, you can swim and all, but-"

"Hey, Kingdom Keepers never give up," Willa interrupted, concentrating on delivering long, powerful strokes. "Talk to me about something else. Normal stuff."

"Okay…" Hesitantly complying to her demand, Finn wracked his mind for an ordinary topic, one he could discuss with anybody. "I got the high score on Modern Warfare 3 last month. That meant playing it for about a day, without stopping to sleep or eat. And I once beat Halo in seventeen hours and forty-eight minutes."

"Dang…you beat…my record…of eighteen hours," Willa rasped out with a smile, disregarding the shivers that raced up her spine. "And Modern Warfare 3...can't compare to Halo…or Black Ops." This was better, this felt normal, like a conversation with her brothers at the breakfast table.

"Oh, I'm sure I could do better if I didn't fall asleep during one of the chapters. Video games are like food and water to me. One of my friends, Bryce, used to spend every weekend eating cereal and playing Halo. He never had anything to write down on his activity log during P.E." They shared equally strained laughs, which snapped Finn back into reality. "Willa, what do you think is going to happen?"

"Well, we'll go off to college and get married and have kids and die, if that's what your asking," she answered sarcastically, receiving a rather harsh poke in the neck. "Ow! Sorry…something tells me that Maleficent won't stop until she's destroyed everything. She's attacking our hearts. Your mom, Maybeck's aunt. They're using Tasers. Remember when we stopped those 'It's a Small World' dolls by _smiling _at them?"

"I miss those days," Finn admitted, searching the horizon for any sign of the cruise ship. "Back when lying was super easy and we still had time to do homework."

"Yeah…" Willa was exhausted, but something motivated her, kept her moving in spite of the fatigue. It may have been Finn, it may have been God. Either way, she was grateful. There came a faint glow in the distance, accompanied by a familiar roar. "F-Finn! Look!"

For a moment, Finn failed to perceive what Willa was pointing to, but once he recognized the ship, he almost jumped off her back. "Yes! We're going to live! Come on, we're almost there! I think they came back for us!"

"I told you!" Willa managed through a thick mass of tears in her throat, her determination increasing tenfold. "Hang on!" She swam like a fish, breaststrokes formed just the way she practiced them in her community pool. "They're coming this way! Call for help, call them!"

Finn cupped his hands around his mouth, amplifying his voice. "HEY! HEY, IT'S US! WE NEED HELP! SOS, ICEBERG AHEAD!"

"Finn, this isn't 'Titanic'!" Willa exclaimed, propelling them forward with a sharp cry of victory. The vast vessel grew larger, towering above them and obscuring the crescent moon. She feared that the captain could not hear their shrieks, and they would be left to freeze to death. Eventually, a painful burst of feedback was emitted from the head of the cruise ship.

"Remain calm and do not swim any further! We will be lowering lifeboats to you shortly!"

"We did it!" Finn slid back into the icy waves, wrapping his arms around Willa and preventing her from slipping away. "We're going to live!" He spontaneously kissed her salt-crusted cheek, which caused a dull blush to creep up her neck. "Ha! TAKE THAT OCEAN, YOU SHALL NOT CLAIM ANOTHER VICTIM TONIGHT!"

A whirring pierced the night, elicited from the machine that lowered a large, wooden boat down past the gleaming sides. Misty-eyed, Finn pulled himself into the oblong lifeboat, assisting Willa in climbing in beside him. They were lifted back up like a passageway to Heaven, bathed in the luminescence of the safety lights lining the deck.

"Finn! Willa!" He could distantly hear a female voice shouting their names, and a golden-haired figure bound towards the boat. Finn had the urge to reply back, but Charlene was cast aside by the crew's paramedic team. They were moved onto the deck, where Finn could see a gorgeous display of constellations, sheltering them and granting the two another day to live.

"Hey, Finn?"

"Yeah?"

"We did it," Willa mustered with a grin before she fell into the oblivion of sleep, the ocean waves crashing beneath her.

**a/n: **Irritatingly short, yes. Roar. But, I do love Finn and Willa together as friends. No, I didn't try to portray Willa as a fearless hero, but I didn't want her to seem weak. Swimming is one of her fortes, and she just wanted to reach the ship in time. I hope the sixth book actually has a better scene than this, and doesn't just have them live happily ever after.

Sorry, rambling. Hope you guys enjoyed!


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